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Breath of the Spirit

Pastoral, Liturgical, Teaching, and Social Justice Moments brought to you by www.DignityUSA.org.

Breath of the Spirit is DignityUSA’s electronic spiritual and liturgical resource for our members and potential members. Nothing can replace your chapter or other faith community, but we hope you will find further support here for integrating your spirituality with your sexuality and all the strands of your life.

We welcome relevant homilies, inspirational writings, social justice opportunities, or theological articles from other sources also — particularly from wise women and men who can help us grow as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) and allied Catholic/Christians. You may volunteer to help with this program or send your comments by e-mailing [email protected] ATTN: Breath of the Spirit.

Part of your remote preparation for today’s readings might be to rent the 1998 movie Simon Birch. It’s the story of a young boy with dwarfism who is convinced God made him for a “special heroic purpose.” Though almost everyone – including his pastor – tries to talk him out of his fantasy, the... more

The first words of today’s first reading are some of Yahweh’s most exciting biblical words. “Comfort, give comfort to my people says your God.” It’s the initial verse of Deutero-Isaiah’s famous 16 chapters. Our faith has never been the same since the ministry of this unnamed prophet. Isaiah 40-55... more

What a shame to have hearts so hardened to the risen Jesus that we can’t appreciate the gifts which are meant to help us carry on her/his ministry. How can we remain “firm to the end” when we don’t understand in what that end consists? It’s our end, not my end. Jesus’ followers are working out this... more

Our sacred authors have a unique problem: how do they conjure up images of God which accurately represent their experiences of God? They presume no matter what picture they surface, it’s not going to do total justice to the God they know. Some aspects of their images work, others fail horribly. The... more

Perhaps the key to understanding today’s liturgical readings is in our I Thessalonian’s passage. In this earliest Christian writing we possess, Paul is dealing with something most first and second-generation followers of Jesus simply took for granted: his immediate second coming. They didn’t... more

We old-timers clearly remember the strong reaction when John McKenzie's book Authority in the Church hit the pews in the late 60s. Some in authority immediately labeled him a heretic, others among the faithful called him a prophet. I finished the book and simply asked, "How come I never noticed... more

Biblical followers of God are known not only by how they relate to God, but also by how they relate to others. They do so from a completely different perspective than those who do not share their faith.

Today’s first reading shows us that the image of Israel as Yahweh’s vineyard goes back at least 2,700 years, to the ministry of First-Isaiah. Yet it also shows us that Yahweh’s problem with the lack of produce from that vineyard also goes back at least that far. “(Yahweh) looked for the crop of... more

A friend once mentioned, based on the gospel Jesus’ comment in Mark 2 that he came not to call the just but sinners, that only sinners can be Christians. Jesus didn’t come to save anyone who presumed she or he was already saved. No doubt that’s why conversion is brought up so frequently in the... more